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User blog:LeeHatake93/The Cole MacGrath Solution
Move over, Ghirahim in Smash Bros. It's time for a new debate. Alright, for whatever reason, a majority of comments lately have been about Cole MacGrath and whether he should remain two characters in a sequel to PlayStation All-Stars, or he should be a single character that can switch between good and evil. I'm here to argue in favor of keeping Good and Evil Cole in the game, without turning Cole into a Pokemon Trainer/Zelda/Shiek-styled character. Arguments 'Starting off:' First and foremost, let's take a look into the past of the development of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. SuperBot Entertainment employees, namely Omar Kendall, a head developer of the game, have expressed comments and answered questions about the decision to add two Coles into the roster. Mr. Kendall stated that he and the rest of the SuperBot team originally planned to add Neutral Cole as his own character, and that however players chose to use his powers would indicate whether or not he turned Heroic or Evil. However, they eventually scrapped this idea and decided that they would only use Hero Cole, most likely because Good Karma is always canon in the inFamous series and they wanted to represent his character as a good guy. However, Sucker Punch Productions, the IP holders and development company behind the inFamous franchise, felt that if Cole were added to All-Stars, he should be represented in both karmic states because, and quote, "The way the character of Cole MacGrath manifests, he would be better suited as two playable characters." I may be paraphrasing a bit, but Sucker Punch really pushed for the inclusion of two Coles, rather than simply one. Now, what would make them want two versions of the same character? Well, let's take a look back at the inFamous series. The main premise of the series is the option to choose whether you want to be a hero or a villain. The central mechanic in the game revolves around karma, which represents the way you use your powers. For instance, killing helpless civilians will earn a strike of evil karma, whereas healing injured civilians will award you with positive karma. The point being, the way you use your powers shapes Cole's personality throughout the story. Here's an example of the dialogue in inFamous's ending. Good Karma: "I thought this would be the end, that once Kessler and the Ray Sphere were gone my life would go back to normal. But now I understand that this IS my life- there's no going back, and that the gift of these powers would be my burden until the day that I die. The people around here love me. How long will that last? What's gonna happen the moment they expect me to be there for them and I'm not? I don't even know who to trust. Moya is still running around planning God-knows-what, and Zeke? I don't know what to think. I've never been more alone." Evil Karma: "Because of me, Empire City is a wasteland. I've taken this place notch by notch, and it's never getting back up again. Kessler thought he was preparing me to face some beast, that I'd use my powers for the greater good. What an idiot. These powers are only good for one thing, letting me take what I want, when I want. In a place with no law, the strong take what they want, and the weak are their slaves, their playthings. And no one is stronger than me..." So, in layman's terms, the path you choose shapes the character Cole will become. If he's a hero, he'll be selfless, and as a villain, pardon my French, kind of an asshole. This is further indicated in the Dead Drops that you can find in inFamous 2. Here's an excerp from a notable Dead Drop: John: "I've been observing Cole MacGrath for weeks now, and I'm starting to get a clearer picture." Kuo: "We're pretty antsy over here, John. What have you found?" John: (Good Karma Response) "Well, despite overwhelming adversity, I believe MacGrath is everything we hoped for. I mean, countless times now I've watched him stop and heal civilians. He goes out of his way to help people. If Kessler's predictions about The Beast are true, it'll take more than heroism to stop him. If we have an angel in our pocket like this guy, it's hard to imagine losing." John: (Evil Karma Response) "He has a lust for violence and mayhem that he can't seem to satisfy. At best he's selfish, at worst... well, I've never seen him try to avoid innocent bloodshed. Quite the opposite. This guy is a nightmare. If I didn't know about the damned Beast, I'd be tempted to put one in his head. Still... It is possible that all this rage will be just what the doctor ordered, so to speak." John: (Neutral Karma/No save file from the first game) "He's chaotic and unpredictable. Even after all this time, I still have no idea what he's gonna do next. Frankly he seems confused. Sorry I can't offer more than that. But... I don't know, maybe all this confusion will work in our favor. Maybe it means he'll be malleable, more willing to take direction, you know? `Cause I'll tell you, when The Beast arrives, it would be a major advantage to be in control of a Conduit with MacGrath's abilities." Through John's three possible responses, we see that Cole's attitude truly does change depending on his karmic alignment. Why is this relevant in the argument? Well, the main focuse here is the Karma mechanic, which I will explain in further detail below. 'The Main Issue:' Alright, one of the main arguments of merging Good and Evil Cole together is working it into a mechanic in his moveset. There are a few suggestions, however, I don't see how any of them could work. First off, many people suggest that Cole should be like Pokemon Trainer or Shiek and be able to switch between Good and Evil. This is ironic since Shiek and Zelda are now separate characters and Pokemon Trainer has been scrapped in favor of making Charizard a standalone fighter. Back on topic, the issue with this idea is that people are implying that Cole can simply say "Hey, I'm done playing the good guy. It's time to cause some mayhem." or something similar. I know it's a fighting game, and they could implement this into his moveset, however, if you'd notice, the characters in PlayStation All-Stars play nearly the same as their source material. With that in mind, Cole can't just switch Karma unless the player of his game has two save files. Even then, it's not Cole switching karma, it's the player switching Cole. However, it is possible to switch Karma in the inFamous games, however, it takes a lot of effort to do so. Karma, in inFamous and inFamous 2, is split into six ranks, three for Good, and three for Evil. These ranks are Thug, Outlaw, Infamous, Guardian, Champion, and Hero. Now, the two Coles in All-Stars are locked at Hero and Infamous ranks, respectively. So, let's say you're playing inFamous, you're a Hero, and you decide you want to play as a villain without restarting or loading another save file. Well, going from Evil to Good is easy: just murder everything and everyone in your path and don't worry about the consequences. However, without Karma-centric missions, even a task that seems as simple as this could take more than an hour or so to perform. This is due to the fact that doing evil deeds won't automatically turn Cole into a villain. If he's a Hero, he has to turn his fame into infamy. In other words, he has to work his way down from Hero status to Champion, then from Champion to Guardian, and then work on working his way up the Evil path, from Guardian to Thug, Thug to Outlaw, and finally Outlaw to Infamous. Now, if you were to be Infamous and wanted to become a Hero, you'd have to push yourself even more, and the challenge of switching Karma would be much more difficult as you'd have to worry about capturing enemies alive, healing pedestrians, disarming bombs, and a lot of other tasks that are much more strenous than simply "KILL EVERYTHING". This means that switching from Villain to Hero would take much longer, even with Karma-centric missions on your side. Now, another idea is what SuperBot originally planned. Have Cole start off Neutral and then base whether he's good or evil on the way the player uses him. Well, there are two problems with this idea, aside from the fact that it sounds complicated. For one thing, how would they explain Cole suddenly gaining fire or ice abilities? Cole recieved those abilities from switching powers with Nix or Kuo, not both. Now, players of inFamous 2 are able to access both Good and Evil powers regardless of their Karmic rank, but only if they've played the game as both karmic paths. However, this is mainly a bonus in the game and in no way is related to Cole's character. Secondly, if they want to reflect on the gameplay of inFamous, then Cole would have to do two things. If he wants to be Evil, then all he has to do is kill all of his opponents, right? Simple enough, but what if he wants to use his Hero powers? NOT kill his opponents, but capture them? Wouldn't that make him overpowered? How about healing them? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of being in a fighting game? So, the Karmic shift moveset couldn't work. Alright, here's an idea that I've cooked up, solely for this argument. In the first inFamous game, the plot revolves around a device called the Ray Sphere. This device is what awakened Cole's powers in the first place, so naturally, it must be able to affect him, right? You're absolutely right. Toward the end of the game, Cole teams up with a man named John White in order to track down the Ray Sphere, which ends up in the hands of the First Sons. After several missions, Cole finally tracks down the Sphere and is given a game-breaking choice. The Ray Sphere gave Cole powers, so reactivating it should make him stronger, right? However, activating it the first time resulted in the death of thousands, and spread a plague that is lethal to anyone who isn't lucky enough to have superpowers. Naturally, destroying the Sphere makes you a good guy and awards good Karma. Even if you're playing as Evil Cole, you'll get a bit of good Karma, but not enough to fully switch sides. But what if we activate it? Well, just as predicted, reactiving the Ray Sphere increases Cole's powers. However, doing so not only awards you evil karma, but even if your Cole has maximum Hero karma, he will immediately shift over to Evil and will be locked at Infamous rank, unable to regain his heroic status no matter how nice he acts. So, with that in mind, it would make sense that maybe we could start the battle as Hero Cole, and activating the Ray Sphere could be one of his Supers, thus, turning him into Evil Cole and alas, two Coles, one slot. This is a sensible idea, however, it would only work with inFamous 1 Cole. Even if we introduced activating the RFI as a method of turning him back into a Hero, the fact of the matter remains is that Cole and Evil Cole have different powers. In inFamous 1, the two Karmic paths offered distinct bolt types, but they were simply variations of the same powers. However, in inFamous 2, Good Cole has ice powers and Evil Cole has fire abilities. As mentioned before, he recieved these powers by absorbing the abilities of Kuo or Nix, but not both. So, even my solution wouldn't work. Now, let's explore the solutions that CAN work. Solutions Alright, as an obsessive fan of fighting games, I can offer a few solutions that can merge the two Coles and still stay true to the source material. 'Taking a page from the Book of Namco:' Alright, it may seem a bit soon to use Smash Bros directly as a reference, so I'll actually refer to another Namco-developed game: the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series. Solution #1 is quite simple: Customizable Movesets! Now, the reason I'm using Budokai as a reference is because, as far as we know, Smash Bros only offers customizable special attacks, whereas Budokai gave us the option to fully customize the character's moveset, from specials and transformations to Ultimate Attacks. Alright, so I'll be referencing Budokai 2 since it's the only one I have right now. Anyway, in Budokai 2, you can assign different "items" to a character. These items can change a variety of things about the character. For instance, "Potara: Vegito", when assigned to Goku or Vegeta, will allow the two to fuse into Vegito. changing their entire moveset. The Potara Fusion works similarly to an Ultimate Attack, but usually just results in the fusion and changes their moveset. This is a lot like Zero Suit Samus' Final Smash in Super Smash Bros Brawl, where she simply suited up. However, after performing the fusion, Vegito would gain an entirely new moveset, including special attacks and an Ultimate Attack. This could be applied in All-Stars II, and could definitely make a difference in Cole's case. For instance, let's go back to the idea of playing as Neutral Cole. In his Neutral state, his Level 1 Super would remain Kinetic Pulse, his Level 2 would be changed to Lightning Storm, and his Level 3 would be determined by the item assigned to him. No item would leave it the same as Good Cole's level 3 in PSASBR. Assigning the item "Conduit Transfer: Kuo" would make Cole's Level 3 a cinematic where he switches powers with Lucy Kuo, locking him as a hero and giving him ice powers. As such, his Level 2 would be changed to Ionic Freeze and perhaps we could introduce activativing the RFI as his Level 3, though it would also result in his death, but it would be unique. Anyway, assigning the item "Conduit Transfer: Nix" would result in his Level 3 sitching his powers with Nix, thus, giving him fire powers and changing his Level 2 to Ionic Drain and Level 3 to The Beast Awakens. This may sound confusing, but if you've ever played the Budokai series, then you know it could work. A similar mechanic is used in the DS Jump Superstars and Jump Ultimate Stars games, although I don't fully understand since I don't speak Japanese, despite owning Jump Superstars. Anyway, next.... 'Two Characters, One Slot:' Yes, you read that right. This option stems from my idea of "hidden characters" from my All-Stars X Smash Bros article, but it's actually inspired by two Namco games. Soul Calibur III and the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series. Also, this feature appears to be one of the main points of the upcoming Mortal Kombat X. Anyway, the way it works is that a character is given multiple fighting styles, something that would normally result in said character using multiple slots (*cough* Naruto), but the multiple fighting styles share a slot. Confused? I'll break it down. In the Naruto games, some characters have alternate costumes. For a few characters, this is just a costume swap and nothing else. For most characters, the costume swaps result in alternate specials and ultimate attacks, and in the case of the modern Naruto and Sasuke, the alternate costume results in a different moveset. Now, in the Soul Calibur games, all user-created characters share the same slot. However, Soul Calibur III was the only one that did more that this. Custom character movesets in Soul Calibur III are divided into two categories: Job and Discipline. The Job category would determine what kind of fighter your character is, and the Discipline indicates what fighting style they used. For example, a Barbarian Job would have the option of a greatsword-centric fighting style, or something called Grieve Edge, which allows him or her to fight with bladed shoes. Now, what does this have to do with Cole? Simple: Selecting Cole would be like selecting a "Job", and the two "Disciplines" would be Hero Cole and Evil Cole. Long story short, the two Coles can remain separate characters with no gimmick to switch them during battle, but now they are selectible in the same character slot. Allow my Smash Bros X All-Stars fanart to demonstrate: 'A Far-Fetched Idea:' The first inFamous game revealed to us that Kessler is Cole MacGrath from an alternate future. This opens up the possiblity that the Evil Karma ending actually isn't non-canon, but exists in an alternate timeline. With this in mind, this means that, in addition to Cole and Evil Cole being very different versions of the same person, they live in alternate timelines. Now, here's my far-fetched idea that will make everyone say "WTF?". Adding Delsin would represent the mainsteam inFamous timeline, which picks up on the Good Karma ending. Allowing Evil Cole to return would represent Timeline C, which is the Evil, non-canon timeline. Now, why did I call it Timeline C? Simple. Kessler's timeline would be Timeline A. So, in an attempt to make everyone disagree with me, they could always replace Good Cole with Kessler. For one, inFamous would be represented by three timelines, and Kessler could use all of Good Cole's moves in addition to new ones. Of course, I'd rather Kessler just remain an alternate costume, but I'll let you guys play around with idea for a while. So, that pretty much wraps up this argument. Category:Blog posts